We took 3 days off homeschooling Aibu to not try to catch up?

[grannyinapram]

It was all getting too much so I just shouted 'get those books put away!' and that was that, aibu to wait until Monday to start again, they have been reading and drawing with the odd speech bubble but nothing else.
There is a timetable to follow from 9am to 3pm and even after cutting out little bits like handwriting and spellings and app games/website games we still weren't finishing everything. I do believe its impossible.

@Theimpossiblegirl

Teachers are in an impossible situation, they really don't expect it all to be done by all families but are being told it all has to be new learning and that Ofsted could come and check on the home learning provision so it had better be good enough. It used to be the Ofsted and SLT pressure filtering down to the teachers, now they have no choice but to pass it to the parents too. I'm sure your child's teacher would love to hear you're putting mental health first.

This.

Sorry parents but welcome to the pressures of Ofsted.

Turn off the laptop and do something else. Good for you.

The difference between the workloads given out by schools is shocking. My dd is getting a few worksheets a day, nowhere near 9-3, she's year 6. I'd rather she had too much and not get through it all than too little and playing for Minecraft hours every day while I work.

Dd is year 1 and the first lesson starts at 9:30, the last finishes at 2pm. We are supposed to take part in a live zoom lesson, followed by worksheets or challenges set on Google classroom. In between lessons we should be logging on to numbots, edshed, epic reading and daily phonics lessons on YouTube.

We are probably completing about 60% of the work set. It's just too much and I'm trying to work from home while having to constantly unmute DD on zoom, log her in to various websites and support DD with the learning. As pp said, the work is quite repetitive so any holes should be filled once they go back. I'm working to keep a roof over our heads, DD can work to catch herself up when she goes back!

You definitely need to be selective and prioritised based on the abilities of that particular child. And I mean abilities in this situation, not their general ability level.

However, do I remember rightly that you’re a grandmother drafted in to help, after another grandmother gave up supporting homeschool? If I’ve got that right, you really do need to discuss this with their mother.

We’ve done nothing since October. My Y10 daughter is suffering from severe anxiety, and although her therapy is helping, she’s still not up to dialling back in. She might take her GCSEs at 16, or 17, or 18 or later, and maybe she’ll start on a career path a few years later, but, as long as her mental health in good, we’ll be fine,
3 days doesn’t amount to a whole hill of beans

Wow Mandal thats a lot!!!

Im quite glad our primary doesnt do zoom classes, just a zoom catch up as that leaves us flexible.

In your case and with a young child I wouldn't do all that no. Is it easy to pick out the basic buildinh blocks through- phonics/reading/writing and maths? A child that age and Id be taking them out on walks each day and playing as much as learning.

Oh, it's fine. Clean slate now, with no catching up!

I work outside the home three days a week and my husband is WFH so can’t do homeschooling when I’m not there. We have an eight and six year old. We do our best but there’s no way we would ever get caught up! The teachers are very supportive and are definitely not expecting all of the work to be done. They are under pressure from the government this time to set lots of work.

Of really stuck I'd prioritise maths (and catch maths up where possible) and try and ensure some reading most days (own book) and some writing each week so they don't lose it. (Write to family? Write shopping lists write a short story? Depending on age).

I think maths is the hardest to plug gaps in so would try to make sure that's covered and then anything above is a bonus.

Its important to set realistic goals and not feel behind every week.

Not me but my friend has decided to not do homeschooling Fridays!
This are hard times for all do whatever you can manage the schools won't be expecting everyone to have done it all I wouldn't imagine!

Even if it's new learning, don't worry.
Depending in the children's ages focus on key bits - for primary aged children I'd say that some daily reading, and daily writing are important, and incorporate some maths into every day stuff.

No school is likely to return assuming that all children have (a) completed it all and (b) have understood it all. They'd be daft if they did tbh.

All this learning, if not exam years, will be looked at again. In primary schools anything key will be covered again and agin going forward.

We are already making plans about what we need to do on our return, which key focuses to redo first, how to balance the timetable so children can still get a varied and balanced day whilst still readdressing the English, maths and phonics concepts. It's important that, although they're important, children get to do other stuff at school too.

And no matter that you read in social media, what you read in the class WhatsApp page, what you read in Mumsnet, etc I have yet to see ANY child or family at my school complete every single task set, not even every single phonics or maths activity. I oversee our whole school learning platform and therefore see every response. Out of 270 children there isn't a single one who has done it all.

@BeakyWinder

The difference between the workloads given out by schools is shocking. My dd is getting a few worksheets a day, nowhere near 9-3, she's year 6. I'd rather she had too much and not get through it all than too little and playing for Minecraft hours every day while I work.

But we also have parents who are finding the content overwhelming, to such an extent they don't want to even look at it anymore.

The balancing act is so hard.

You're not enough might be breaking point for some.

The government says we should provide 3-5 hours a day, although not all of this needs to be activity watching and listening input, it should also include all the completing activities time, both academic, written and practical.

For some of our families 3 hours worth of stuff would be an horrendous amount for them to get through, especially if there are more than one child, not enough devices, rubbish WiFi and two working parents.
For others 5 hours wouldn't fill their time.

We also have to balance how. long activities might take a child, even when we try to make them open ended. At school we can send a child back to add more detail, etc and take longer over their independent task. At home some will whizz through it and do the bare minimum without the teacher encouragement to do a bit more,

Despite my username, it hasn't been too bad here - l only have one child and l only work 2 days a week so can be here to help for 3 full days. Our school has said use Fridays to catch up on any work from the week or just to practise times tables and maths.
But our school are really adamant that they want happy children not stressed out upset ones so l don't think they would complain about missing a couple of days of work OP.
Start afresh on Monday then enjoy half term. Hopefully it will only be a couple of weeks and they will be back at school x

@sweetiepie1

Not me but my friend has decided to not do homeschooling Fridays! This are hard times for all do whatever you can manage the schools won't be expecting everyone to have done it all I wouldn't imagine!

I think that would be ideal and add an emphasis of catch up, explore own interests and hobbies, share 'show and tell' type activities if they want.

Sadly too many parents would object. Just reading Mumsnet shows that many parents would see it as the teachers just shirking,

Abrax are you infants though? My child is juniors (and I'm secondary trained not primary) but the "incorporate everyday maths" wouldn't cover decimals in the way school has the last 2 weeks. I've been really impressed with their lessons and the way they've built on each other (and not been excessively long). I've seen the understanding develop in my child through it. Our school has been clear to emphasies its more important to do in order than on the eight day. My little mum group of friends have certainly done all the maths - but we might skip doing the poster activity for geography for example.

I understand schools are all providing differently though.

I definitely think parents should pick the important bits if what school is providing is too much.

I can completely see that wouldn't be necessary in infants though.

I think schools providing a lot of activities can perhaps suffer from the overload and not knowing what to prioritise.

Eight day? Right day. Doh.

We had power cuts in our area and the school told families to resume on the current day so that everyone was working on the same thing - not to bother catching up.

I would personally sit and have a read through the missed work myself though, to see whether there was anything in particular I thought my child would benefit from.

Keep at it! Only one week till half term!

We take most afternoons off to be honest, I look at what is covered, usually PE, RE or PSHE and we chat about it but we usually go for a walk instead. My son has been majorly struggling with the work at home, writing and spelling have been horrendous and I have been so worried he is going backwards. He had to go to school on Wednesday for one day and the work he brought home was beautiful and the motivation of being in class with peers was all it took - from now on I am going to relax about home learning. Keeping him ticking over is enough but we don't miss the maths as that is key in my opinion.

We're about a week and a half behind, I'm just limping through to get to half term, I am exhausted so is DD.

If she returns to school behind so be it, she won't be the only one. I know several parents doing no home-school work at all.

Def just have a quick look and choose! We finish "school " by lunchtime every day here so we can go on walks etc. (Well the primary child does, secondary child is all day with zooms and activities but that suits them thankfully. ) We prioritise which lessons to do properly and which to just watch the video. I'm sure everyone will work differently as to how to fit it into their day and how much to do.

In our case I believe the maths is important to do sequentially as that's how our school is teaching it and Im aware of primary kids that go into secondary with gaps where they "missed the week on x"

But mental health trumps it all at the moment. And surviving!

We've done the same. We're behind with writing work - it's the thing DD needs most help with and nearly always ends up with tears and tantrums. I shouldn't leave it until last, but I really hate the fights it causes. So we did NO writing this week. I feel bad about it, but I'm not going to try and catch up - we did everything else and we're just going to start next week afresh.

I'm insisting DS (year 2) goes back today and does the maths and art he refused to do and tantrummed about yesterday. Otherwise surely he just gets the message that work is optional if he kicks up enough fuss? Dreading it though, will turn the whole weekend into a battle and I'm not letting him have any screen time until it's done and he shows a better attitude.

That sounds really sensible diamond. If she struggles with it you don't want to turn it into a battle or reinforce the feeling of "behind". Is there something you can do differently - ie see what theyre trying to teach and do it your own way? Depending on the age of the child can they write you a shoppping list? Plan a picnic for teddies? Write to a relative about what they've been up to. Id stop before you get to tears and tantrums but it is so hard isn't it. Can you aim to do every other week/wvey other task? "Just do this for 15mins/10mins" and set a timer so they know they dont have to do it forever?

It is such a hard thing to be distance learning as a small child. :(

I spoke to our my 5yos head teacher this week, we have actually managed to get all the work done and not fall behind (not bragging I swear) but the HT said she was going to ask the staff to give a little less work as some families were over a week behind and she didnt want to pile the pressure on. Yanbu

I do work in infants yes, though have friends and family with children in all key stages too.

We have a lot of families where there are two full time working parents, as does our linked juniors. We have to be careful to balance workload.

We are building skills lesson on lesson. It's why we carefully label our activities to show the progression and highlight which lessons need to be completed in each order. they are also saved on a google drive for parents to access at later dates - we archive activities online weekly to avoid the huge build up of tasks for those only able to dip in and out. The google drive has all lessons carefully names and in folders according to subject, topic and lesson order. Weekly overviews posted the weekend prior also shows progression and key focus subjects.

It's interesting to me as I know some parents have messaged me (as I oversee the remote learning) concerned that the class WhatsApp suggests people are completing all tasks or at least every phonics, etc. But I can honestly say I don't know one child where it's all be done. And those who might have 'complied' every task - in some cases what they've uploaded is a fraction of the activity, or they've just added a comment to say that the lesson was watched and concept understood, but no evidence of actual physical work.

I know some topics are harder to incorporate into every day maths - but even so, all of this will be re-covered by any decent school. None will be assuming everything has been done and the concepts fully understood.

Therefore if families can't manage it all (and every school should be acknowledging this) then they shouldn't panic.